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Re: Unboxing the Asus UL20A 12.1 inch laptop

bradlinder — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:52:53 -0000

It does not seem to.

Re: Acer Aspire 1410 review (dual core version)

bradlinder — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:47:12 -0000

I've spent the last two years thinking about these issues. There have been
laptops without optical drives that are most certainly not netbooks. The
Asus UL30A I reviewed recently lacked one. But it has a 13.3 inch screen.
Would you call that a netbook?

I've written several manifestos over the years describing what I think a
netbook is, and while it may not entirely be up to me to decide, I've been
pretty consistent. If you check the "about" page, you'll find the
description I wrote over a year ago and it's the same as the one I just gave
you in terms of size, weight, and price.

I'm not sure why you're insisting that netbooks aren't laptops though. Are
they smartphones? If it has a nearly full sized keyboard, folds in half, a
battery, and can rest on your lap, I'm pretty sure that makes it a laptop.

Re: Unboxing the Asus UL20A 12.1 inch laptop

bradlinder — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:25:29 -0000

You know what? I hadn't even noticed that, but you're right. It doesn't. The
UL30A does, but not the UL20A.

Re: Unboxing the Asus UL20A 12.1 inch laptop

bradlinder — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:00:21 -0000

But the UL30A also had more RAM than the UL20A... I'll be posting benchmarks
for the UL20A soon so we'll have another comparison point.

Re: Unboxing the Asus UL20A 12.1 inch laptop

bradlinder — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:59:53 -0000

I haven't had a chance to test the SU4100 yet, but as you can see in my Acer
Aspire 1410 and Asus UL30A reviews, the SU7300 does appear to outperform the
Intel Celeron SU2300 processor, which appears to be one of the cheapest dual
core CULV processors available.

Re: Acer Aspire 1410 review (dual core version)

bradlinder — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:39:58 -0000

Actually, I have two points to make:

1. Netbooks *are* laptops, and if you read my reviews of other machines you'll see that I frequently use the words interchangeably.

2. I've always drawn the line between netbook and non-netbook at screen size. In order to be a netbook it needs to meet several criteria. It needs to have a 10.2 inch or smaller display, weigh about 3.5 pounds or less, and cost around $500 or less (although this price has dropped a lot in the last few years, so that I might think about revising it to $400 or less).

It's never been about the processor. The first OLPC had an AMD Geode processor, but it's still a netbook. The first Eee PC had an Intel Celeron processor: still a netbook. And there are plenty of machines with VIA C7-M or VIA Nano processors. They're netbooks too, as long as they're small, light, and cheap.

I've also never called the Sony Vaio P a netbook, because it doesn't meet all the criteria either. It's small, light, but expensive.

In the end, it's all semantics though. It doesn't matter what you call these devices. They're all changing the way we think about computer price, size, and performance.

Re: Fujitsu introduces LifeBook P3110 thin and light 11.6 inch laptop

bradlinder — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:24:39 -0000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob

Re: Acer Aspire 1410 review (dual core version)

bradlinder — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:29:37 -0000

As far as I can tell the only difference between the Acer and Gateway models
is the branding.

Re: Sony figures out a way to charge even more for the Vaio P

bradlinder — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:55:45 -0000

sorry, that was a typo... it should have read 256GB.

Re: First look at the Zune HD with NVIDIA Tegra – Video

bradlinder — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:23:30 -0000

It's on hold for the moment, but Gizmodo put together a nice roundup
yesterday:

http://gizmodo.com/5397986/hd-media-player-batt...

Re: First look at the Zune HD with NVIDIA Tegra – Video

bradlinder — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:29:35 -0000

The main appeal of HD video on a tiny device is the fact that you don't need
to convert your video collection to watch it. As I mentioned, I have dozens
of TV shows I've recorded with a high definition TV tuner. It would be nice
to be able to sync them with a portable device without having to transcode
them into a different format with a lower resolution.

Unfortunately, since I've been using DiVX as my compression format of
choice, I'll still need to transcode my old videos if I want to watch them
on the ZuneHD. But I just configured my media center software to start using
H.264 instead so all future recordings should sync up perfectly.

Re: First look at the Zune HD with NVIDIA Tegra – Video

bradlinder — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:07:51 -0000

Heh, I stand corrected. I had no idea HP was still making these. Good for
them!

Re: CLEAR holds Philly launch event for citywide 4G WiMAX network

bradlinder — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:59:48 -0000

Not last time I checked.

Re: Benchmarking the Asus UL30A (and other PCs)

bradlinder — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:33:28 -0000

Sounds reasonable. Or you could just give the range.

Re: Benchmarking the Asus UL30A (and other PCs)

bradlinder — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:27:27 -0000

I just ran it again and got 1:03. It looks like my model might have a faster
hard drive than yours.

Re: Benchmarking the Asus UL30A (and other PCs)

bradlinder — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:00:35 -0000

Yeah, I figured ZIP is probably a more common file format, and I just like
the 7-zip user interface better than the Windows utility. Basically I picked
these CPU and HDD stress tests because they represent things I'm likely to
actually do with a PC.

Re: Benchmarking the Asus UL30A (and other PCs)

bradlinder — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:25:45 -0000

Hmm... that's odd. I did the same test on the new dual core 1410 and got
0:55 for folder copy (2186 files totaling 478MB) and 1:38 for the zip test
(2186 files, the ZIP file is 453MB).

Did you use 7-zip to zip the folders, and did you use the ZIP settings
instead of the 7z setting?

I was shocked by the 10 second folder copy on the UL30A, but that's honestly
what happened.

Re: Quickies: Hackintosh future is bright, Eee PC turns 2

bradlinder — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:07:05 -0000

That's why I said the Eee PC was the first consumer oriented netbook. The XO
was definitely the inspiration, but the Eee PC was the first device of its
kind that you could walk into a store and buy.

Re: Toshiba Mini NB205-N330 review

bradlinder — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:26:11 -0000

Oh, and FYI my 7:09 battery test result was from leaving the computer on
non-stop with light web browsing, some image editing, and you know, the
stuff you do when you're blogging. I think I watched one YouTube video for
about 2 minutes.

Re: Toshiba Mini NB205-N330 review

bradlinder — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:24:43 -0000

That's interesting. I think there were actually a couple of other apps that
I didn't bother mentioning. I'll see if I can get you a complete list before
I return the laptop.

Re: Windows 7 + netbooks = lower battery life?

bradlinder — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:53:56 -0000

As I've mentioned in the past, I have pretty much given up on Battery Eater
as a test of real-world performance, but I wanted to run it in these two
cases to compare my results with others'.

But when I publish a more detailed review on the Win7 Eee PC 1008HA I expect
to have more real-world results for the battery performance section.

Re: A tale of three notebook sizes

bradlinder — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:47:06 -0000

And one day... the computers will learn to walk upright....

Re: Acer Aspire 1410 dual core unboxing and first look – Video

bradlinder — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:25:30 -0000

You're right. It looks like Acer lowered the hard drive capacity when
switching processors. The original Core 2 Solo version had a 250GB hard
drive, but the new model has a 160GB hard drive. I'll update the
description.

Re: Now in the product database: 12 inch and smaller laptops

bradlinder — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:24:18 -0000

Not that I'm aware of, which is one of the reasons I've started covering
low-end all-in-ones. But if you find a good site, let me know!

Re: Acer Aspire 1410 dual core unboxing and first look – Video

bradlinder — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:04:40 -0000

The keyboard is identical to the one I reviewed here:

http://www.liliputing.com/2009/09/acer-aspire-1...